Looking for Wilhelm book recommends

Her book “it’s never too late.” was so inspiring to me.

I haven’t seen these but just the titles, Think Aloud and You Gotta Be the Book, sound most interesting. Any way I can see some sample pages?

Unfortunately, amazon doesn’t have sample pages for these books, although I could research and try the publishers’ site. Another intriguing title by Wilhelm is “Reading Don’t Fix No Chevies”—a book about boys and literacy. (That book I can borrow, our district having had a big push on boys and literacy to address falling test rates.) I am hoping to attend a conference at which Wilhelm is one of the keynotes speakers (with Janet Allen). I can peruse the books there but would rather read in advance.

I will say that after using comprehension strategies with my classes of LD students, they are very, very effective. Multisyllable attack strategies are necessary, of course, because the majority are stuck at about gr. 4 level, but most of my current group do not need to start with PG. (I am using Rewards-just recently started due to an ordering mixup). Their basic code knowledge is good, and all can segment and blend. I

was given the class because it was felt they were so problematic behaviourally (coming from gr. 8) that I should have them.

Classroom management has been much much easier than I anticipated based on the depth of their school records. I think that is because of the novelty and intrinsic interest of the strategy approach, the fact that, as well as giving them decodable text to read each day and giving multisyllable attack instruction, the strategy approach allows me to give them materials to practice on that are close to their grade level and which challenge without insulting them. They are all more motivated to read than they were on day one. (One boy is half way through his first ever book.) Next I will be focussing heavily on oral fluency practice- a clear need for all of them, as well as continuing with Rewards and writing practice.

One intriguing result—one girl reads orally at a rate that is low average but blasts through silent reading passages at 325 wpm with (of course) compromised comprehension. She hates the strategy approach because it forces her to do what she needs—slow down. (A discrepancy between oral and silent rates is normal for everyone, but I have never seen such a wide discrepancy before, but then it is only recently that I have started assessing both rates. The experience of testing both rates for her has convinced me that it is a good thing to do with every student.)

I’ve frequently been surprised at class attitude — but I’ve come to the conclusion that there really is something to the idea that once I can get them *into* an engaging (not to be confused with entertaining) lesson, that most people really do get too busy learning (and feeling reasonably satisfied about it) to spend their attention distracting each other.
Never heard of these books — you must share :-) I’ve been disappointed in just about everything else I’ve found. I’ve considered putting my stuff together (just click on ‘reading comprehension” at my site) … but then I also want to make those math materials, and those online interactive vocabulary modules and… and… and I just bought a house :)

Have you looked at Cris Tovani’s book, “I Read It, But I Don’t Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers”? This might be along the lines you are looking for. It is not thick and philosophical like “Mosaic of Thought”, but more direct on strategies. The author herself had problems with reading comprehension and has taught classes of adolescents. Amazon has some sample pages you can view.

Nancy

Jan,
Your class sounds a lot like mine-behaviorally challenged LD boys (and girls, who behave just fine). I have just started REWARDS as well, but I’m leery that it might not work-the kids don’t seem to have the attention span to attend to it, and I do break the lessons up over a few days. It also might be too much to assume that they will remember the sounds that I am teaching them in those first few lessons. They can’t seem to straighten out the “sound” vs. “name” thing with the short and long vowels.

I’m used to a decoding program such as Wilson that has rules to cite and keywords to use for remembering-REWARDS doesn’t have rules or tricks. Oh well, I’ll keep plugging along, hoping the kids will benefit.

The information you give on your comprehension books sounds great-are the books appropriate for 8th graders?

I’d love your opinion on REWARDS, too.

Thanks!!!

Sue,
I love your vocabulary lessons. Please publish a book. (Could help pay for the new house!) I scanned your links. Kylene Beers makes explicit and usable for teachers just what Gersten and Baker cover in their article, for example. She has lots of in-depth stuff on what others skim over. For example, the Muskinghom site presumes students can identify the main idea. Thy often can’t at the early high school level, even with “circle the most general idea” exercises (furniture, chair, desk etc. - an exercise I use for teaching topic sentence writing.) Beers breaks inference making down into specific steps. This I have not seen before, anywhere. And unlike most writers in the field (influenced by whole language in the main?) she acknowledges the need for decoding and spelling instruction.

Nancy,
I like Tovani’s appendices. Hers is a good, general introduction to the comprehension topic. Beers is more in depth, and I recommend her book if you haven’t read it.

Lorbis,
It’s too soon for me to make conclusions re Rewards. One class member is going to whine as we get into it—thinks he doesn’t need it. It’s true he might not need as in depth a treatment of multisyllable work; he like the rest of them needs fluency work. I may utilize him as my “assistant”.

You’re lucky with your girls. I’ve got one who seems bipolar and another who is sweet in class but just got a suspension for beating up the bipolar girl across the street from the school before the morning anthem! The boys are, of course, hyper but cooperative for the most part.

After a great start, we are in the November doldrums. My first intro. of Rewards went okay because of the novelty factor. My rationale is the in depth testing I did which clearly reflects a need, so I have already helped create a buy-in for the pgm. by meeting with them one on one (most of them that is, -due to suspensions it has been hard to pretest all of them). I will keep you posted.

Mine have no trouble distinguishing letters and sounds—sounds like you might need to start with a little abbreviated PG work. (I disguise this part as a spelling program—we review sounds, do word sorts, and I have them decide as a group which word will be on our spelling test. I review special endings and move quickly to multisyllable, after making sure every one can segment and blend, which all mine can. The spelling tests count for work skill marks not actual grade marks, and they get bonus for using scratch sheet spelling.)

So much depends on the background of the students. Mine have all had decoding programs in elementary school; their code knowledge is okay so it’s multisyllable where they need to start.

I will let you know how I progress. (I am late starting due to a district ordering dept. gaff. We are semestered, ending in January, with 76 min. periods—a real challenge for ADD/behavioural kids. I will need to abbreviate lessons where I can. Generally things go well when I break the period up in to 3-5 segments, so they will like the variety the Rewards program will represent in our long class. I also have an interesting fluency/comprehension program called Pointed Reading, by Rick Freeze, Univ. of Manitoba. I haven’t had time to figure out how and if I can integrate it but it looks good. My general impression is that Rewards could use supplementation with more fluency work. The challenge with that part will be to get the students to work well together. I have been building in “think pair share” a lot lately and spelling out my behavioural expectations to get them ready.

It is a real challenge to cover all the bases in a semester!

Jan,
I also have a long period of time with the kids in my class-it’s an 80 minute period of time-reading and language arts, back-to-back. I also teach them writing, grammar, proofreading, etc. so I have a lot going on. It’s easy to break everything up into small time slots.

My biggest issue that I’m having trouble with is reconciling myself with the fact that my class could be broken down into smaller reading groups based on ability, but if I do that, I’ll lose the control that I have in teaching the class as a whole. That’s why I decided on Rewards, thinking it would teach to the highest level in the class and allowing my aide and myself to try to keep the lower readers moving along with it as well.
I’m not sure if I like it yet-I need more time with it.